


The Birds and The Bees

by TourmalineGreen



Series: GGMC-verse [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha!Ben Solo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Omega!Rey, Parenthood, The Talk, designation-ed videos, elementary school is awful in its own special way, first crushes, stay at home dad ben solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 18:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16522454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/pseuds/TourmalineGreen
Summary: Ben will never ever be able to forget the first, squalling sight of his son. Black-haired—so much hair—and red-faced, yelling in a way that had made the midwives remark about ‘healthy Alpha lungs!’ Ben hadn’t exactly hoped to have an Alpha son, but he hadn’t not hoped, either. It was familiar to him, and his own experience, although he knew that his son would have his own life. Hopefully a less-anxious, less-awkward time of it than Ben had… but, judging by the expression on his son’s face, Ben knows that something is very definitely up.





	The Birds and The Bees

It’s Thursday, somewhere in early November. Ben Solo does what he normally does at around two-twenty in the afternoon, five out of seven days a week. He wraps up any calls or meetings, hands off any projects on-deck, marks himself as _Away_ on Slack, and pulls on a shirt—the latter because he tends to run hot when he works in his little upstairs office, and has taken to keeping a stack of t-shirts by his desk in case he has to hop on a video call. He takes advantage of this, sometimes—texting shirtless photos to his wife to distract her, especially when she’s in a meeting.

The range of flustered and horny responses he elicits haven’t changed much in the twelve years they’ve been married, and he knows she loves that he still pushes her buttons, photographic or otherwise. She especially likes it when she can see the edge of his mating scar, his possessive Omega wife…

That thought makes him grin.

Ben tugs on his shirt, grabs his phone and keys, and pads downstairs. He slides his bare feet into his shoes, and goes outside, welcoming the crisp, fall air as the wind rises up around him. As he makes his way down to the bus drop-off spot, he thinks to himself: I’m so lucky. Twelve years of domestic bliss, marked here and there by all of the normal settling-in and adjustment that relationships take, is more than he ever could’ve dreamed. Married—mated to a beautiful Omega, who is even sexier now in her mid-thirties than she was when he’d first glimpsed her, across an office. His friends tease and joke: Marriage makes you boring; Mating ties you down.

He’s never been happier to be tied down.

At this thought, Ben flushes just a little. _Later_ , he thinks. Can’t walk up to a bus full of school children with _that_ thought percolating in his brain.

He arrives at the corner. Makes small talk with the other parents. It’s weird, and he knows it, but he’s the only stay-at-home parent who is an Alpha. Rey had spent the first four years of their son’s life at home, balancing parenthood and her career, and when the time had come for her to re-enter the workforce in a more defined position, Ben had been delighted to take his turn. They shared everything, anyway; why should biological designation dictate what either of them could, or could not do?

Plus, he kind of loves working from home, in his pajamas, and sending his wife shirtless pictures, so. It’s a win-win.

The yellow school bus pulls up, at last, to the corner. The kids trail out, one by one. Cute little Kindergarteners, their backpacks practically as big as they are. Tall, tween-age sixth-graders, sporting striped purple hair, sequin backpacks, and attitudes visible from space.

Finally, Ben waves at his son.

And Lucas, who is normally exuberant and practically buoyant to see his father waiting for him, looks down at his zebra-print Toms, and scuffles over to his father, dejection practically pouring off of him in waves.

“Hey kiddo,” Ben says, leaning down to wrap his son in a side-hug and press a kiss to the top of his dark mop of hair, so like his own. “How was school?”

“Fine,” Lucas mutters.

And pulls away from his father’s embrace.

Ben… tries not to overreact, but it’s difficult. Lucas is ten and a half now, very definitely a kid, very definitely out of the little boy stage—but Ben will never ever be able to forget the first, squalling sight of his son. Black-haired—so much hair—and red-faced, yelling in a way that had made the midwives remark about ‘healthy Alpha lungs!’ Ben hadn’t exactly hoped to have an Alpha son, but he hadn’t _not_ hoped, either. It was familiar to him, and his own experience, although he knew that his son would have his own life. Hopefully a less-anxious, less-awkward time of it than Ben had… but, judging by the expression on his son’s face, Ben knows that something is very definitely up.

They walk back to the house together. Lucas aims a kick at a nearby pinecone, making it roll a few feet ahead of them. Ben, smiling, reaches the same pinecone before his son does, kicking it, trying to instigate a little friendly competition.

Lucas just sighs, and keeps walking.

“You do anything fun today?” Ben tries, matching his long-legged strides to his son’s. “Learn anything cool?”

Lucas just mutters something that might be a no or might be literally any other word, and goes a bit red in the cheeks.

 _Patience,_ Ben thinks. For all that he and his son are, physically, built so similarly—the same long legs, the same big feet, the same proportions and mannerisms and sleek, soft, dark hair grown a bit overlong—his son is his own person. Lucas is Rey’s son, too; she had given him her eyes, a beautiful, shifting smoke-green, and not a small quantity of her personality.

While Ben tended to clam up, Rey tended to get anxious. What a winning combination for their wonderful, amazing, sensitive son to inherit.

He’ll talk when he’s ready, Ben thinks, as they go inside the house.

“Get your homework out,” Ben admonishes him. “You know the drill, don’t just leave your backpack on the floor, c’mon.”

Lucas—grudgingly—obeys. He picks up his black-and-white checkerboard-print backpack and trudges over to the kitchen table.

“And your shoes, that’s not where they go,” Ben says.

Lucas puts his backpack down at the table, sighing like a child who’s been asked to do the unthinkable, burdened with the abject weariness of the world itself, and puts his shoes away on the rack by the door.

“Thank you,” Ben says. “You hungry?”

“Mmm,” Lucas says. “Yeah, sure.”

Ben stills, forcing his parental annoyance back into the closet whence it had come, and really listens. His son sounds… tired, dejected, not surly or rude. Something is definitely up. So he goes into the kitchen, pulls out the loaf of bread and slices some cheddar cheese, making his son a grilled-cheese sandwich while Lucas gets his books and homework folder out and spreads it across the entirety of the table.

As the sandwich sits in the pan, toasting the other side to golden-brown perfection, Ben takes out his phone, and sends a text to his wife.

> _**Ben:** Something’s up with Lucas today, please tell me this isn’t when the teenage attitude kicks in, I’m not ready._
> 
> _**Rey:** Oh no, did something happen at school?_
> 
> _**Ben:** I have no idea._
> 
> _**Rey:** Well, just don’t ask him about Jade._
> 
> _**Ben:** Who is Jade?_
> 
> _**Rey:** It’s his girl friend from school_

Ben looks up, surprised; his son has a girlfriend? When did this happen? He should’ve been informed. Is she nice? What did—

His phone buzzes in his hand again.

> _**Rey:** as in… a girl who is a FRIEND_
> 
> _**Rey:** But I think Lucas has a bit of a crush_
> 
> _**Rey:** so it could be that_
> 
> _**Rey:** She came to his birthday party this year_
> 
> _**Ben:** Okay, good to know_
> 
> _**Rey:** Were you ready to go and call her parents?_
> 
> _**Ben:** … no_

Rey sends him a smiling emoji, and Ben, smiling faintly now as well, tucks the phone into his pocket, taking the grilled cheese off of the pan just in time. He slices it diagonally, and puts it on a plate, bringing over to the table.

“Careful,” he says, unnecessarily. “Still hot. You want tomato soup to go with it?”

Lucas shakes his head. He’s got a pencil in one hand, and the same frown on his face as before.

“Okay,” Ben says. “Let me get you a glass of milk.”

“Thanks, dad,’ Lucas says, softly.

Ben smiles, and resists the urge to ruffle his son’s hair.

 _Patience,_ he thinks. _Patience._

Ben comes back with a glass of milk, and sits down at the table beside his son. They make quick work of the homework that has been sent home; no school tomorrow, Ben reminds himself, as they go through math and geography and a worksheet on chemistry. There’s a group project that Lucas has just started working on, an info-packet on that which catches his eye, too, due to the name that’s been doodled in the corner.

_Jade…_

Lucas hastily shuffles those papers back underneath the bundle. Ben says absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are eaten—plural, because Lucas makes quick work of the first one, and, apparently revivified by the presence of toasted bread and melted cheddar, makes eye contact with his father for the first time this afternoon, and asks very politely for a second one. Ben, who has never been able to say no to his kid, agrees.

As he’s getting out the ingredients for round two, Ben feels his phone buzz once more. Another text from his stunning wife.

> _**Rey:** How’s he doing?_
> 
> _**Ben:** A little better._
> 
> _**Rey:** Good. I’m home in twenty. Miss you._
> 
> _**Ben:** Miss you too._
> 
> _**Rey:** How was work?_
> 
> _**Ben:** Work was work. Not too much on my lap._
> 
> _**Rey:** I wish I was in your lap instead._
> 
> _**Ben:** I can definitely arrange that…_

Ben brings the second grilled cheese sandwich over to the table. Lucas does seem to brighten just a bit, and they work on adding and subtracting fractions until Ben is sure he’s never hated anything more than fractions in his entire fucking life. Fifth grade math seems entirely too fucking long ago…

But then, Rey comes home. He hears her car pull up and park in the driveway, and all of his senses go on high-alert, like they always do when she is around.

Lucas notices, too, but for vastly different reasons.

“I better get dinner in the oven,” Ben says, and he rises from the table, heading to the fridge. There’s a pan of lasagna that he just needs to pop into the oven, a few touches of a button, and the thing is preheating before Rey can even get her keys in the door. It’s a family-sized pan, and Ben thinks, not for the first time, that recipes written for ‘serves 5–6’ must not account for the presence of two bottomless-pit Alpha guys; Lucas has just wolfed down two sandwiches, but Ben has no doubt that his son will probably eat at least a third of the pan of lasagna.

Rey opens the door. Ben darts around the corner, sliding in his socks, making her laugh.

“Hey, you,” he says, with a grin.

“Why hello,’ Rey responds, setting her coat and laptop bag down, toeing off her shoes and easing into his embrace. “Missed you today.”

“Missed you, too.” Ben says, and he breathes in the scent of her hair—her soap, her shampoo, the scent of the misting rain which must be falling outside in the darkness. God, every moment with her is like a reunion. Alphas are possessive, and Ben is no exception, but while he’s managed to temper his reaction to her somewhat, it always, always feels like a homecoming, when she’s back in his arms.

Plus, there’s the added bonus of him knowing that her next heat is two days away. Ben can smell it on her, and it _does things_ to him.

“Ben,” she whimpers, only pretending to be scandalized as he leans his big body over her, hands on her hips.

“Later, then,” he says, and he seals the promise with a kiss on the tip of her nose.

Rey smiles up at him. “Yes.”

Ben glances over her shoulder, and sees Lucas standing there, watching the pair of them, something like a stricken expression on his face. He rolls his eyes a little. “Kiddo, it’s perfectly normal for married couples to—”

“I’m gonna go play Minecraft upstairs,” Lucas says, a bit too loudly.

His whole face is flushed.

Rey breaks away from Ben’s loose embrace, and goes to hug her son. “I missed you today, don’t I get a hug?”

Lucas obliges his mom with a hug, and Ben smiles at the picture the two of them make. Rey kisses her son on the cheek, and Lucas doesn’t entirely squirm away. But Rey, she doesn’t miss a thing. Never has. She holds her son, and looks into his eyes.

“Now, are you going to tell us what’s going on?” she says gently. “I can tell something made you upset today. It’s so much better to talk about things, rather than sit on them and let them get worse and worse in your mind.”

Lucas sniffs, and nods.

He may be ten and a half, tall and lanky and very much not a baby anymore, but it’s still a little kid. And she’s still his mom. As insightful and loving and focused with her son as she was, in those first anxious weeks of their relationship, with Ben.

Slowly, Ben sits down on the sofa, and Rey pats the side of the loveseat, and Lucas sits down as well.

He takes a big breath, and lets it out on a sigh. He wipes his eyes on the too-long sleeve of his sweater. Finally, he speaks.

“We had… they had a… we learned about… designation, today.”

Ben barely restrains himself from letting out a bark of relieved laughter. All that anguish, over the designation-ed talk? His son is just as emo as he is, and wow if that isn’t hilarious to see from the outside. Ben, thankfully, does not laugh about this, however; he knows full well how gutting it would have been, to have been laughed at. He tries for something like a neutral, faintly concerned expression, and folds his hands, elbows on his knees, leaning forward, listening.

“Alright,” Rey says, calmly. “Your teacher said you’d be covering that this week. Do you have any questions?”

Lucas looks up into her eyes. “There were... diagrams and... did you really have to do _that_ with dad to make a baby?”

Oh god. He can’t. He can’t keep it together. It’s too much.

Thankfully, Lucas is still looking at Rey.

Ben can see the faint wobble of amusement in her mouth as she nods. “Yes… but… Lucas, it’s a very natural part of… when two people love each other very much, sometimes they—”

“But that... when it… it has to…” Lucas is practically sputtering now, and oh, Ben can remember that day, back when he was his age. The diagrams up on the whiteboard, the curt, clinical descriptions of all of the very specific biological differences between Alphas, Betas, and Omegas, between males and females of each designation… Ben wouldn’t have ever wanted to talk about knotting with his own parents, and he can see that Lucas is mortified.

“Do I REALLY have to bite an Omega?” Lucas continues, his voice pitching a little higher, a little louder. “Because my best friend Jade is an Omega and I don't want to bite her, dad—wait, did you bite MOM?"

Lucas turns his head to look at Ben; somehow, Ben maintains his expression of sensible, fatherly concern. “Yes, I did, but—”

“I don’t want to have to do that,” Lucas says, shaking his head. “It’s… _gross._ ”

“It’s not gross, it’s normal,” Ben says.

“I’m never biting anyone,” Lucas says decisively. Then, he turns back to his mother. “Does it hurt?”

“The… bite?” Rey says, her voice a little faint from repressing her laughter, too. “Not too bad. There are hormones that help make it feel… well, it sort of feels nice, but a mating bite isn’t something you can just give anyone. You have to be certain that… that person is someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

At this, her eyes lock with Ben’s. He smiles, feeling a rush of warm fondness spreading over him.

That’s the miracle of the mating bite, he thinks. That connection, that reassurance. He knows Rey loves him, never has to doubt it. Even though he might buck the conventions of what an Alpha is supposed to be doing, and she might raise some eyebrows, too—and elicit a few whispered judgements, along the lines of _Omega, shouldn’t she be at home with her child, and only one child, too, what’s wrong with her?—_ Ben knows that to him, she is perfect. Always has been, always will be.

But his son is still slightly freaking out on the couch, so, he tries to focus.

“The school tries to teach you these things before you need to know them,” Rey explains, calmly and rationally, as ever. “It’s important for you to know how your body works. You’re an Alpha, and that means you have some special things you need to know about your body. It also means you need to be responsible with it, even if your feelings tell you to… act certain ways, or do certain things. Do you understand?”

Lucas nods, but there’s confusion in his eyes.

“And you don’t ever have to do something you don’t want to do,” Ben says. “Something that both you and your partner want to do—when you’re old enough to make that decision.”

Lucas nods again. He looks a little more relieved.

Ben can, perhaps, relate. There’s something faintly wild and uncontrollable, those first Alpha stirrings. It hearkens back to an ancient, feral biology. A time when Omegas really were chained to their Alphas, mated often against their will, made to bear as many children as their Alpha gave them—Ben can’t imagine treating Rey that way, but knows full well that the very same urges that simmer beneath his own skin once drove that way of life. Alphas are intense, demanding, impulsive.

And, apparently, sensitive, too.

Lucas sniffs again; Rey gives him a hug.

“You don’t have anything to be afraid of. I know it’s hard, your body changing, learning all these things… but you know, you are still in control of what you think, and say, and do. Your body belongs to you, and nobody else.”

“They gave us a… box of, like, stuff, too,” Lucas says, mostly into Rey’s sweater. “It’s in my backpack… I didn’t want you to see…”

That’s his cue, then; Ben gets up, and goes to the table. He finds the very distinctive aqua-and-pink box buried beneath Lucas’ coat in the very bottom of his backpack, and brings the item over to the couch, sitting on the other side of his son.

“Can I look?” Ben says. “You know, the ones they gave us were bright blue, with yellow stripes.”

Lucas, despite himself, laughs, and looks over at his dad. “You got these, too?”

“Oh yeah,” Ben nods, still holding the box in his hands. “And we had to watch a video. It had a skateboarding kangaroo in it.”

Lucas laughs again; Rey does, too.

“Why?”

Ben shrugs. “I have no idea. I think they were trying to be hip and with it and cool.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Lame.”

“Super lame,” Ben agrees. “We normally thought, y’know, when the teacher rolled in the TV cart, that we’d get the Science Guy videos, but—”

“What’s a TV cart?” Lucas interjects, his dark brows furrowing. “Is that like a projector?”

Ben levels a wordless ‘oh god, I’m so old’ look at his wife, who stifles a laugh behind her hand.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sort of. Anyway, the teacher put in a different tape and—that’s like a DVD, but a big plastic rectangle—anyway…. Yeah, we had to do the same awkward thing as you.”

“We had a video to watch, too,” Lucas nods. “All of the Betas got to go to an assembly, but all of the Alphas came into our class and the Omegas had to go to Mr. Johnson’s class. I guess they probably had a video too.”

“Probably so,” Ben nods.

“And then Mrs. Ridley put on the DVD and we all had to watch this, like—” here, Lucas makes air-quotes on either side of his head: _“‘Hey! So you're an Alpha! Here's what you need to know about the changes happening in your body!’”_

Rey does laugh at this; Lucas beams. “It was so lame.”

“So why were you so upset, when you came home?” Ben asks, as gently as he can manage.

Lucas shrugs. “I guess, I was just thinking… it talked about… scents, and designation, and I just… sometimes Jade smells so nice but… I just want her to be my friend, I don’t want to… y’know. I guess I don’t want things to change. Anyway. After, at recess, we all went outside and compared notes, and the Beta kids were jealous because they didn’t get some of the stuff we got, but the Alpha kids, we all got like, a deodorant? And the Omega kids got one too but it was like… scent-blocking, I guess. Jade showed me the one she got and we smelled it and it was so gross. And she got _pads._ ”

Lucas makes a little disgusted noise, wrinkling his nose up. “Eugh. I don’t want to think about _that._ ”

Behind her son’s back, Rey rolls her eyes a bit, lovingly, in the way only a devoted mother can. “It’s not weird, it’s normal.”

“Mom,” Lucas says, turning to look at her, all seriousness: “trust me, sometimes normal things _are_ weird.”

Ben laughs. Lucas shoots a glare at him, but then softens, smiling as well.

“We can get you another brand of deodorant,” Ben says. “You can try mine.”

Lucas makes another face at him. “No thanks.”

“Or you can always ask Grandma and Grandmilyn about it,” Rey adds. “Remember, you’re staying over at their house this weekend.”

Lucas lights up. “I am?”

Ben nods, smiling; He does not want to get into the reason for Lucas’ monthly overnights with his grandmothers, and how that’s connected to Rey’s heats, and all the things they can finally do to each other when keeping quiet isn’t a factor. This weekend, they’d planned on heading to a very secluded lake house for a little bit of Lord-of-the-Manor and Defiant-Serving-Wench. Lucas does not need to know about any of _that._

“Awesome,” Lucas says with a grin.

“Are you feeling better about all of this?” Rey asks, giving her son another quick hug. “I know it seems scary and weird and like everything is changing, but you’re going to be fine, I know you will.”

Lucas nods.

And then, with an endearing, open expression on his face, he turns to his father, and asks the most important question of all to a ten-and-a-half year old Alpha who is loved by his parents so much: “When’s dinner?”

* * *

Later, when Lucas is asleep in bed, and Ben has just rinsed his toothbrush, he turns and looks back at his stunning Omega wife, waiting for him in their massive, King-sized bed, and smiles at her.

It’s a little chilly in the room, the way Ben likes it, but Rey is wearing a pair of soft, plaid pajamas, curled up under a second blanket, a compromise they’ve learned how to make to ensure both of them can sleep well… when it’s sleeping, only, that’s on their minds. Already the scent of her pre-heat is rising in the air, especially here, in this shared space. They’ve been together so long that her scent has mingled with his, and his, in turn, with hers; Ben fucking loves it, he wants to rub himself all over her and make sure the world knows she is his.

Rey smiles at him. He turns off the bathroom light, and slides in beside her in bed.

She makes a contented noise as she immediately snuggles up against him, tucking her cold feet in against his heater-like warmth.

“Did your designation-ed video _really_ have a skateboarding kangaroo?” she asks, quietly and incredulously, in the darkness.

Ben huffs a laugh into her neck, and kisses her there. “Yes.”

_“Why?”_

“I have no idea.”

“Mmm,” Rey says, as his arms go around her body, tugging her even closer. “I never know when the right time is, to have _The Talk_ with him…”

“I think it went okay today,” Ben says. “What do you think?”

Rey ponders her answer for a few long, contented minutes. “I think it’s freaking me out a little, the realization that Lucas is growing up so fast.”

“Yeah,” Ben replies. He can absolutely relate to that. “But he’s a good kid. I just don’t want him to… feel like this is something to be scared of. God, talking to him about this, though… it’s so awkward.”

“Yes, it is,” Rey exhales. “You’re a good dad, Ben. I love you, I feel so grateful that you’re mine... my husband, and my Alpha.”

Ben feels the prickle of distinctly un-Alpha tears in his eyes. He smiles against her skin, and presses a line of kisses down to her collarbone, making her squirm and grind against him.

“I love you, too,” he says, voice barely above a hoarse whisper. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

And what happens next? Well, it’s as simple as biology, really.

(But thankfully, sans skateboarding kangaroos.)


End file.
